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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The Orcs found their world dying and the only way to save their kind is to invade Azeroth, a place where
humans, dwarves and other creatures live in peace. As a destructive war waiting to happen, one Orc, Durotan (Toby Kebbell) tries to contact the humans and help the clans unite but their ambitious leader Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) have some other plans in mind and forces everyone to follow his orders. From two opposing sides, two heroes set to march on and lead the way to save their home and their people.

Warcraft: The Beginning is sparked with glorious CG effects that are quite a treat on the first opening sequence. However, it's tiring and cartoonish in the long run making this film hard to enjoy in the latter parts. It is rich in story, but with a lot of undeveloped characters thrown in the mix, it is really hard to appreciate everything. It comes to a point where-in you wished you have a remote control inside the cinema to fast-forward everything and move-on to the good parts.

It is quite depressing that Director Duncan Jones couldn't capitalize on this project and make it exceptionally rewarding in like what he did to one of my personal favorite film "The Source Code." I admire his passion and dedication in this film, but it can't seem to hold up as became a big disappointment for this summer Blockbuster season.

Overall, Warcraft: The Beginning has a lot to offer on the table but can't seem to hold everything in place. It can't make your trip to the cinema enjoyable as everything seems to fall apart even if you really want to appreciate the effort that is put into it.

Every
parent’s greatest fear is seeing their child in pain. But what if
that child’s source of pain is indescribable, unreachable, and may
not even be real? In Warner Bros. Pictures' new horror thriller “The
Conjuring 2,” it becomes clear for Peggy Hodgson, that something
supremely evil has permeated her London home and infiltrated her own
daughter, Janet. It’s equally clear that there seems to be
absolutely nothing she can do to protect her family.

British
actress Frances O’Connor, who portrays the overwhelmed Peggy, says,
“She’s a single mum with four kids living in a council house, so
at the start of the film, life’s already pretty tough. She’s got
no money and her husband’s not paying any support, so there’s a
lot of strain within the house. Pretty quickly some small, paranormal
things happen and Peggy is so stressed she doesn’t even see that
it’s there.”

Until
slowly, things begin to escalate. “One night, she is finally
confronted by it when the girls’ wardrobe just slams across the
room and hits a door. And from there it just gets much worse.”

O’Connor
was aware of the incidents at the real Hodgson home at the time they
occurred. “I’d read the stories and seen those pictures of the
girls levitating, that kind of thing, and found it quite terrifying.
There was a lot of documentation. So when the script came to me, I
was interested in telling that story.”

In
casting the part of the haunted daughter, director James Wan admits,
“I think the hardest role to cast was Janet Hodgson, to find a
young actress who could really capture the vulnerability of what this
11-year-old girl went through, and I’ve got to say, we are so
fortunate to have found Madison Wolfe.”

With
so much of the film’s believability riding on her portrayal of a
possessed young girl, he adds, “She was able to play Janet’s
innocence and naiveté at the beginning, but then slowly change her
as she becomes more affected—and infected—by this entity that’s
living in her house.”

Wolfe
says modestly of her character, “I think she’s very smart and a
sweet girl, but when these things start happening to her, it affects
her a lot, like it would anybody.”

Vera
Farmiga easily sings her young costar’s praises. “Maddy Wolfe is
very impressive, very savvy, for such a young age. She has so much
stamina, and she went inward and downward into these cavernous depths
of negativity, yet she’s really a lighthearted and joyful child. It
was quite surprising to watch because she’d go deep in a take and
then just snap out of it and talk clinically about it to James, and
then go right back into it. It’s just a very finely tuned
instrument that she has and in my opinion her performance is nothing
short of astounding.”

Patrick
Wilson had worked with Wolfe previously, though her
performance—including her English accent—were so good he didn’t
realize it was the same actress at the script read-through. “I kept
thinking she might be a girl in my son’s school, that she was the
British counterpart of this other child I’ve seen,” he recalls.
“But then, at the end of the reading, she told me she’d played my
daughter in another film, and out comes this Louisiana accent!
Granted, we didn’t have a lot of scenes together in the earlier
film and it was a few years before, but her accent for this film was
so good I had no idea she wasn’t English.”

Opening
across the Philippines on Thursday, June 09, “The Conjuring 2” is
a New Line Cinema presentation and will be distributed by Warner
Bros. Pictures.

With
the hit comedies “Dodgeball” and “We’re the Millers” to his
credit, Rawson Marshall Thurber, director of Universal Pictures' new
action comedy “Central Intelligence,” was looking to expand his
filmmaking repertoire by incorporating a run of action in his next
film.

“I’ve
loved action movies my whole life and I’ve been wanting to make one
since I was about, oh, eight years old,” Thurber says. “This has
been a lot of fun.”

“Rawson
really understands tone and timing,” Kevin Hart says. “It’s not
just the rhythm of the action, it’s how everything meshes. The
segues are seamless, the writing is smart, and there were small
moments that we were allowed to make big moments because we had a
great cast to work with and Rawson gave us the room to play.”

Opening
across the Philippines on June 15, “Central Intelligence” follows
a one-time bullied geek who grew up to be a lethal CIA agent (Dwayne
Johnson), coming home for his high-school reunion. Claiming to be on
a top-secret case, he enlists the help of the former “big man on
campus” (Hart), now an accountant who misses his glory days. But
before the staid numbers-cruncher realizes what he’s getting into,
it’s too late to get out, as his increasingly unpredictable new
friend drags him through a world of shoot-outs, double-crosses and
espionage that could get them both killed in more ways than he can
count.

Thurber
also wrote the film’s screenplay, with Ike Barinholtz & David
Stassen.

As
the movie opens, Johnson’s character is introduced in flashback as
a hopelessly uncool high schooler with the unfortunate moniker of
Robbie Weirdicht. A supersized kid with a gentle soul, he’s easy
prey to campus bullies, and is forced to drop out after the
irreparable humiliation of being hurled, naked, into center court at
a school pep rally.

At
the same time, Hart’s character, Calvin – aka The Golden Jet –
is Central High’s top athlete and all-around reigning superstar, a
guy for whom the sky was the limit and everybody’s best bet for
most likely to succeed.

Twenty
years later, no one is cashing in on that bet. A risk-averse
accountant stuck on the middle rung of the corporate ladder and
commanding zero respect from his colleagues, Calvin takes harsh stock
of himself as his high school reunion looms: a dead-end job, a
marriage on life support and a humdrum existence that hasn’t lived
up to its promise. Meanwhile, the doughy loser everyone wrote off as
Weird Robbie appears to have successfully reinvented himself as Bob,
a confident charmer with a rock-hard physique, the skills and
instincts of a CIA operative, and an exciting life that Calvin can
only imagine.

In
truth, they were never really friends. But that’s how Bob remembers
it, based on Calvin’s single act of kindness at that awful rally –
offering his letterman jacket for Bob to cover up – and it’s a
fine point that nice-guy Calvin is certainly not going to press now
that they’re adults and Bob invites him for a beer a couple of days
prior to the big reunion. What harm could it to do to spend an
evening catching up?

Within
hours, Bob’s seemingly casual request for Calvin to analyze some
financial data takes a suspicious turn, leading his former classmate
into a labyrinth of underground transactions, and a high-stakes plot
over stolen encryption codes for the U.S. spy satellite system that
could threaten global security.

While
his superiors believe Bob is behind this scheme and are trying to
bring him in, Bob claims to be tracking the real villain, code-named
Black Badger. And despite Calvin’s vigorous denials that he has
anything to do with any of this, his home and office are soon invaded
by gun-wielding agents; he’s threatened, chased and shot at, and
suddenly his life depends upon how fast he can move and how close he
can stick to a guy he now wishes he’d never laid eyes on.

“Central
Intelligence” is distributed by United International Pictures
through Columbia Pictures.

British
actress Emilia Clarke takes a 360-degree turn from her famous Mother
of Dragons character, Daenerys, in “Game of Thrones” to portray
the wide-eyed, endearing Louisa, in New Line Cinema’s heart-tugging
romance, “Me Before You.”

“What
drew me to this movie were the words of Jojo Moyes, the book first
and then the script,” explains Clarke. “I was hooked on page one
and so excited to play a character with such charm and sincerity, who
is so authentically and brilliantly British, and with such a lovely
arc in her story.”

With
no clear direction in her life, quirky and creative Lou works hard as
a waitress in a small café in order to help her family make ends
meet. “Louisa is a happy-go-lucky, very content girl,” observes
Clarke of her character. “When we first meet her, she is working at
The Buttered Bun Café, serving tea and scones. She’s very good at
it, she loves the clientele, and we see she’s a sweet kind of
caring girl who just wants to do well.”

But
times are tough and Lou is let go. Knowing her income is as crucial
as her skill set is minimal, she tells her local job placement agent
that she’ll happily try anything. Her naturally cheery outlook is
put to the test, however, when she faces her newest career challenge
as caregiver and companion to Will Traynor. A once robust young man,
he became wholly dependent on others due to an accident two years
prior, and his whole world changed dramatically in the blink of an
eye.

Director
Thea Sharrock says, “Lou lives with her parents, her sister, her
grandpa and her nephew in a very small house in a very small town.
But her mum doesn’t have a job, Granddad doesn’t have a job, and
Dad now doesn’t have a job, so her small income is a very big deal.
Yet her outlook remains a sunny one.”

To
find an actress who could play positive under pressure, the
filmmakers cast a wide net. “We saw hundreds of girls, and I had
Skyped with Emilia about the role, but I can honestly say that when
she walked in to audition and did her first scene, it was literally
like Lou was in the room,” Sharrock recalls. “There was no
question. Her energy was exactly right; like Lou, she was just a
breath of fresh air.”

Clarke
had an easy rapport with the first-time feature director. “Thea is
just the greatest, I love her. You’d never, ever, know that this
was her first film,” she declares. “It’s a testimony to her
intelligence, her integrity and her work ethic that working on this
project, with its very tricky subject matter, felt almost effortless.
She was so giving and always had a smile and a laugh to put us at
ease, and that trickled down to everyone. I never felt like I was
working.”

Based
on the critically acclaimed, bestselling novel by Jojo Moyes, New
Line Cinema’s and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures’ “Me Before You”
stars Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”) and Sam Claflin (“The
Hunger Games” movies), under the direction of renowned theatre
director Thea Sharrock, making her feature film directorial debut.

Oftentimes
you find love where you least expect it. Sometimes it takes you where
you never expected to go…

When
Louisa Clark—Lou, as she’s known—unexpectedly loses her
waitressing job she must scramble to replace the income that her
tight-knit family depends upon. Desperation drives her to take a job
as a caregiver to Will Traynor, a man who used to be a wealthy banker
with an adventurous soul, living life to the very fullest, but for
whom those days are in the past. After a tragic accident, Will lost
the desire to live and now keeps everyone at a distance with his
caustic, overbearing attitude. But unlike his family, Lou refuses to
tiptoe around him or cater to his moods. In fact, her sparkling
personality and easy nature are hard for even Will to ignore, and
soon enough each becomes exactly what the other needs.

Set
for release across the Philippines on June 15, “Me Before You” is
distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment
company.

The
film's Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be available to
download/stream via digital stores starting June 3. Get the CD for
only Php 459.00 at Astroplus/Astrovision stores starting June 10.

Disney-Pixar's
“Finding Dory” welcomes back to the big screen Dory, friends
Marlin and Nemo—and composer Thomas Newman. “To me, he was one of
the cast members of ‘Finding Nemo,’” says director Andrew
Stanton. “We formed a close relationship ever since, and now that
he is behind the score for ‘Finding Dory,’ it fees like the last
member of the family has arrived at the reunion.”

According
to Stanton, scoring a film like “Finding Dory” with a composer
like Newman takes the films to places he has yet to imagine. “It
forces me to have to really explain out loud what my intentions are.
It can lead to very intense conversation between the two of us. But I
get so much out of it. I end up understanding my movie ten times
better—it’s almost therapy for me. We just click.”

“There
was no way I could not do “Finding Dory,” says Newman, who was
nominated for an Oscar® for his work on “Finding Nemo” and won a
Grammy® (best song written for motion picture, television or other
visual media) on Stanton’s “WALL•E.” “It’s ironic that a
movie about fish—some in aquariums, some in open water—has such a
huge range of emotive possibilities—from the hysterical to the
deeply profound and primally frightening. That’s exciting to ponder
musically.”

According
to Newman, the score is designed to support the film’s big themes
of loss and the characters’ efforts to conquer their individual
shortcomings. It also showcases the deeper, less sunny side of Dory’s
personality. “Dory’s theme has a certain amount of quirkiness and
a certain amount of sadness built in,” says the composer.

The
goal, says Newman, is to complement the story. “If there’s humor
or pathos, I want to bring it out, but I don’t want to re-describe
it. I just want to underline it. I want to make it more of what it
already is.

“I
liken music to makeup on a face,” continues Newman. “At its
worst, it’s garish and overdone. At its best, you don’t notice it
and it brings out the best qualities.”

Singer-songwriter
Sia is on board “Finding Dory,” performing the film’s
end-credit song, “Unforgettable.” (Watch
Sia sing “Unforgettable” for the first time below)

American
songwriter Irving Gordon wrote the song in 1951, and in 1992 won a
Grammy® for it when Natalie Cole included the tribute to her late
father on her album of duets. “Unforgettable” remains revered
worldwide today.

Five-time
Grammy® nominee Sia agreed to sing the song when the voice of Dory
herself made the request. “Dory's story makes me teary,” says
Sia. “When Ellen asked me, I couldn't refuse!”

Director
Andrew Stanton has long been a fan of the native Australian
performer. “In the same way Robbie Williams did his own unique
twist on a classic song for ‘Finding Nemo,’ Sia captures the
soulful truth of the Nat King Cole classic ‘Unforgettable,’ and
makes it all her own,” said Stanton. “They are a perfect
complement to one another, just like the two films.”

Disney•Pixar's
“Finding Dory” finds Dory living happily in the reef with Marlin
and Nemo about a year after their life-changing adventure. When Dory
suddenly remembers that she has a family out there who may be looking
for her, she recruits Marlin and Nemo for a life-changing adventure
across the ocean to California’s prestigious Marine Life Institute
(MLI), a rehabilitation center and aquarium.

In
the effort to find her mom and dad, Dory enlists the help of three of
the MLI’s most intriguing residents: Hank, a cantankerous octopus
who frequently gives employees the slip; Bailey, a beluga whale who
is convnced his biological sonar skills are on the fritz; and
Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark.

Deftly
navigating the complex inner workings of the MLI, Dory and her
friends discover the magic within their flaws, friendships and
family.

“Finding
Dory” swims into Philippine theaters on Thursday, June 16. The film
is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International
through Columbia Pictures. Follow the official social media accounts
of Disney in the Philippines, namely, (FB) WaltDisneyStudiosPH,
(Twitter) @disneystudiosph and (Instagram) @waltdisneystudiosph and
use the hashtag #FindingDoryPH.

Directed
by Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”), “The Accountant” tells the
story of Christian Wolff (Affleck), a math savant with more affinity
for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town
CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the
world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. With the
Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King
(J.K. Simmons), starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate
client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk
(Anna Kendrick) has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of
dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets
closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Paramount
Pictures' third installment of the J.J. Abrams-produced "Star
Trek” film franchise has gone above and “Beyond" for four of
its characters, giving them their own individual one-sheets, in
addition to a new international teaser poster. The film opens across
the Philippines on July 20.

The
highly anticipated next installment in the globally popular Star Trek
franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J.
Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin (“The Fast and the
Furious” franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S.
Enterprise and her intrepid crew. In “Beyond," the Enterprise
crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they
encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the
Federation stands for to the test.

Paramount
Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies and IMAX Corporation announced recently
that “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS,” the
latest installment in the blockbuster franchise, will be digitally
re-mastered into the immersive IMAX® format and released in all
IMAX® 3D theaters across the Philippines beginning June 1st
(simultaneous with its bow in 2D and 3D cinemas).

Leonardo,
Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo return to theaters this summer in
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS” to battle
bigger, badder villains alongside April O’Neil (Megan Fox), Vern
Fenwick (Will Arnett), and a newcomer: the hockey-masked vigilante
Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). After super villain Shredder (Brian Tee)
escapes custody, he joins forces with mad scientist Baxter Stockman
(Tyler Perry) and two dimwitted henchmen, Bebop (Gary Anthony
Williams) and Rocksteady (WWE Superstar “Sheamus”), to unleash a
diabolical plan to take over the world. As the Turtles prepare to
take on Shredder and his new crew, they find themselves facing an
even greater evil with similar intentions: the notorious Krang.

“We
are pleased to collaborate once again with our long-time friend and
partner Michael Bay, as well as the entire team at Paramount, in
offering international audiences the opportunity to see ‘TEENAGE
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS’ in IMAX® 3D,” said
Greg Foster, Senior Executive Vice President, IMAX Corp. and CEO of
IMAX Entertainment. “This latest installment raises the bar in an
already highly entertaining and imaginative franchise, and we believe
the film fits right in with a robust overseas IMAX summer line-up.”

The
IMAX® 3D release of “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE
SHADOWS” will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound
quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital
Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images, coupled with
IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio,
create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they
are in the movie.

“Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” is distributed in the
Philippines by United International Pictures through Columbia
Pictures.

Award-winning
actor and filmmaker Tom Hanks stars in “A Hologram for the King”
set in recession-ravaged 2010 as an American businessman named Alan
Clay adapted from the book of the same title by acclaimed author Dave
Eggers.

Hanks’
role in the movie is a broke, depressed and freshly divorced man who
arrives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to close what he hopes will be the
deal of a lifetime. His mission: sell a state-ofthe-art holographic
teleconferencing system to the Saudi government. Adrift
and alone in an unfamiliar land, Alan befriends taxi driver Yousef
(Alexander Black), who chauffeurs him through the desert to the
“King’s Metropolis of Economy and Trade,” a surreal ghost town
of vacant skyscrapers and half-completed construction projects.
Baffled by the bureaucratic reception he gets at the so-called
“Welcome Center,” Alan struggles to figure out why his small IT
support team is being forced to spend its days in a sweltering tent
as it preps for the big presentation. Worse, because of the Saudi way
of doing business, he’s unclear if the king will ever show up for
the long-scheduled meeting.

Clay
arrives in Saudi Arabia without any prior knowledge of the place,
other than his own cartoonish, stereotypical concept, according to
Hanks. “Though he’s not a happy guy, when Alan tries
to sell the upbeat nature of the 3-D hologram and rally his team, he
becomes this other guy, the former Alan Clay, a man with energy and
vibrancy. That’s where the comedy comes from.”

In
addition to emphasizing the book’s humor, Tykwer bolstered the
romantic elements as he translated Eggers’ story from page to
screen. “The longer I worked on the script, the more profound the
love story became because it connects to this whole third-act
decision where the movie becomes a more optimistic tale,” Tykwer
says. Alan is coaxed out of his funk by Zahra Hakem, an
alluring, talented surgeon portrayed by London-born Sarita Choudhury.
In her role as CIA Division Chief Saul Berenson’s long-suffering
wife Mira on the Emmy-winning series “Homeland,” the half-Indian,
half-English actress developed an avid following that included Hanks
himself. “I remember seeing Sarita for the first time on ‘Homeland’
and thinking, ‘Alright, I don’t know who she is, but that woman
is riveting. I don’t know where she comes from but I can’t take
my eyes off her.”

In
Hollywood’s finest black-comedy tradition, “A Hologram for the
King delivers laughs spiked with bittersweet undertones. “We’ve
made a crisis comedy that points the finger at the fact that our
economic structure is falling apart and the apocalypse seems to be
looming just around the corner,” Tykwer says. “We use comedy as a
tool to embrace tragedy like a balloon you stick with a needle so it
explodes and the energy that comes out is cheerful. Despite all ofAlan’s
problems, I hope this movie cheers people up.”

For
Hanks, who’s earned iconic status and five Academy Award®
nominations by playing regular, good-hearted Americans who triumph
overhard luck circumstances, A Hologram for the King is the story of
a man who stumbles upon an emotional and spiritual oasis after
wandering in the desert. “Why make a movie about a guy where
nothing ever works out for him? That might work fantastically as a
piece of literature but as far as the cinema goes, the story requires
this other thing — for want of a better word, let’s just call it
hope.”

“A
Hologram for the King” opens June 1 in cinemas from OctoArts Films
International.

Friday, May 27, 2016

In
1970, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren battled a malevolent
presence that permeated a remote farmhouse in the US—a case brought
to the screen in 2013 in Wan’s hugely successful “The Conjuring.”
Then came the most highly publicized case of their careers,
Amityville, which would nearly destroy them.

This
June, writer/director/producer James Wan seeks to terrify moviegoers
once again with his depiction of another highly publicized case
involving the real-life horrors experienced by paranormal
investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren with “The Conjuring 2.”

It’s
late 1977 when, with the effects of Amityville still haunting them,
the Warrens come out of a self-imposed sabbatical and travel to
northern London to take on a vile demonic entity that has taken root
in the home of the Hodgson family, in the populous borough of
Enfield. What is thought by many to be a hoax will become the most
documented case in paranormal history.

“Everything
Ed and Lorraine have been through since we met them in the first film
has been leading up to Enfield,” Wan states. “Out of the
repertoire of cases they investigated over their lifetime, Enfield is
one of the most compelling…and frightening. It’s also one of the
most interesting in that in many ways it is a reflection of the
Amityville haunting, so in the film we touch on that as well.”

“This
was the first time I’ve ever worked on a script that was based on a
true story,” offers Johnson, who had been eager to work with Wan
for some time. “I’ve always been a horror fan, but what was
really interesting to me was that this was not only true, but there
was so much publicity surrounding this case at the time, and so many
witnesses. Even the police had filed reports; this wasn’t just one
or two people or an isolated family saying what had happened.”

Chad
Hayes states, “This was such a powerful story about a real family
falling apart. The father’s gone, the mother’s doing everything
to make ends meet, and then this happens. Even after all of our
research, it’s just…unimaginable…but it’s true.”

“We
could see that even with all that Ed and Lorraine went through after
Amityville, like being accused of being charlatans,” Carey Hayes
observes, “seeing young Janet accused of that as well gave Lorraine
something to identify with and Ed something to defend, beyond their
usual compassion for families having these kinds of troubles.”

All
these years later, Lorraine Warren still vividly recalls the fear she
felt immediately upon arrival at the Hodgsons’ home and on first
glimpsing the peril the family was experiencing. “I could see the
girls were in two beds. Then they levitated, they crisscrossed in the
air, and the girls screamed. I knew I needed to help them.”

Opening
across the Philippines on June 09, 2016, “The Conjuring 2” is a
New Line Cinema presentation and will be distributed by Warner Bros.
Pictures.

Drek (Paul Giamatti) and Dr. Nefarious (Armin Shimerman) has a villainous plan - to build a new planet with the help of their powerful weapon called as "Deplanitizer." This raised the concern of the Galactic Rangers who badly needs another member in their group to maintain peace and order to the entire galaxy. The rangers set a try out for the slot, and a Lombax mechanic Ratchet (James Arnold
Taylor) was unfortunately turned down. However, when a defect robot escaped from Drek's factory, Ratchet found a new companion in Clank (David Kaye) who knows the impending plans of Drek that may cause total mass destruction to the entire galaxy. Soon, Rachet must find a way to warn the rangers and prove himself that he is indeed worthy to be a part of the team.

Ratchet and Clank is another harmless animation that may entertain kids but might annoy their accompanied adults inside the cinema. It is based on a Playstation game that I never played before so it's really hard for me to say if it followed the material from the game. The animation was fine and the characters are solid at times, but they can't seem to deliver a promising story to make the entire thing memorable. It lacked some inspiration to make the story captivating.

The story is also rushed as it fell short in giving lessons for kids or providing the younger audiences with something they could cheer about after leaving the cinema. It also confused on what story line to take as it jumps from different directions. The voice casts were terrific, but any of those solid actors didn't leave a great impression in their character.

Overall, Ratchet and Clank had its moments in bringing an enjoyable animated film. However, it fails to deliver something special to make the entire thing stand out. There is life somewhere in the film, but it just can't seem to leave a meaningful impact to its viewers.

Lakwatsera Lovers rates it 4.5 out of 10 starsCast: James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Bella Thorne

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Action
is the operative word when it comes to the four brother Turtles, but
the filmmakers of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the
Shadows” are careful to intersperse every skirmish with humor.

"Fun
energy," as director Dave Green likes to call it. "It's
important that the audience feels that the Turtles are always in
danger," he says. "But at the most serious or scary
moments, we often have a joke to punctuate that moment just to give
you relief from the tension. Jojo is brilliant at that."

Green
is referring to Filipino-American stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio,
known on set as Jojo, who designed the fight scenes for the 2014
film. This time around, he brought fellow Fil-Am veteran
multi-martial artist Jon Valera to help in training and articulating
much of the action in the film.

Eusebio
and his team begin by planning and working out the action in a
warehouse, videotaping the sequences using stuntmen in place of
actors, to give filmmakers and idea of what they have in mind. Once
they receive notes, Eusebio and Valera refine their routine and begin
working with talent to prepare them for filming.

"The
biggest challenge on sequels is always to try and out do the
original, whether in magnitude of the action or the complexity of the
story," says Eusebio. "We tried things we didn’t get to
do on the original, but at the same time preserved the fun and humor
of the Turtles' camaraderie. We listened to feedback from the
previous movie and fans can expect something even bigger and better
this time around."

Given
that Eusebio had trained the actors who played the Turtles for the
first movie, Noel Fisher (Michaelangelo), Pete Ploszek (Leonardo),
Jeremy Howard (Donatello) and Alan Ritchson (Raphael) had a
foundation from which to begin learning new moves for the sequel.

"Even
though the guys appear more often in this film, they actually trained
less than they did on the previous movie," says Eusebio. "On
the first movie there was a learning curve when to use the actor’s
movements and when to use their stunt double’s movements. We
figured out how to be more efficient and save time in terms of
scheduling. Stunts and visual effects handle the bulk of the action
movements for the Turtles."

Eusebio’s
team had also developed a shorthand with Megan Fox from their work on
the previous film. "Megan isn’t afraid to get into the thick
of things and she's always willing to do as much as she can," he
says.

To
the film's benefit, Eusebio and Valera were able to spend a
significant amount of rehearsal time with actor Stephen Amell. They
credit his experience on his television series “Arrow” for his
ability to learn the moves quickly.

"It
was always a cognizant decision to make Stephen's version of Casey
Jones handle the action differently than his Oliver Queen/Green Arrow
character on Arrow," says Eusebio. "Unlike the
Green Arrow, Casey is not a proficient martial artist, his movements
are bigger and not as refined. He wins fights and gets out of
situations incidentally rather than by using a methodical and
well-planned design."

When
it came to a big stunt piece in which Casey must skate through a
treacherous escape route while taunting his pursuers, Amell was
determined to perform the action himself.

"One
day Stephen looked at me and said, 'You know I can skate?'"
recalls producer Andrew Form. "I knew he played ice hockey and I
cautioned him that he would be skating through cars, chased by moving
vehicles. He said, 'Get me some roller blades,' so we did. I have to
say, the guy can skate. Stephen didn't want anyone doing his stuff,
so pretty much every stunt, every time you see Casey, from his foot
on the gas pedal, his hands on the steering wheel to fighting or
zigzagging through a crowded garage, it's Stephen."

After
supervillain Shredder (Brian Tee) escapes custody, he joins forces
with mad scientist Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) and two dimwitted
henchmen, Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (WWE Superstar
Stephen “Sheamus” Farrelly), to unleash a diabolical plan to take
over the world. As the Turtles prepare to take on Shredder and his
new crew, they findthemselves
facing an even greater evil with similar intentions: the notorious
Krang.